Popularized party drug raises concerns in state, Oakland County

Officials are becoming increasingly concerned about a drug that has taken the lives of several young people across the country and that is gaining popularity in Michigan — including Oakland County.

The drug is called Molly and it is considered the pure form of MDMA, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine, also known as Ecstasy, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The term Molly is slang for molecular.

Unlike Ecstasy, which commonly has additives, Molly is the powder or crystal form of MDMA. MDMA could also be in capsules, tablets and liquid forms. Many times a brand name is given so users can easily identify the drug they want.

Molly is a synthetic, psychoactive drug that has similarities to both stimulant amphetamines and the hallucinogens. It produces feelings of increased energy, euphoria, emotional warmth and empathy toward others and distortions in sensory and time perception, according to the NID.

Oakland County Sheriff’s Sgt. Sean Jennings said the drug is present in Oakland County.

“It’s a popular and increasingly popular drug,” Jennings said. “It is just like Ecstasy ... it is the more pure form of MDMA is what they say.”

Detroit DEA Special Agent Richard Isaacson said the DEA does not look at drug use from the individual level, but says Molly is “very popular here in Michigan.”

Some users use test kits that can be found online, along with brand names, to identify the content of the drug they are paying for.

An online database called ecstasydata.org tests Ecstasy for a fee. The database shows Ecstasy bought in Michigan, including Oakland County, and the substances found in them. The drugs, all containing different substances, were bought in communities such as Bloomfield Hills, Royal Oak, Walled Lake and West Bloomfield.

Isaacson said some users think that testing these drugs to ensure they are pure MDMA means nothing, since it is “a dangerous drug on its own.”

“There isn’t such a thing (as safe Ecstasy) ... that whole industry is quite scary because you’re giving people a false sense of security (on these websites),” Isaacson said.

And the users of this drug are typically young — ages 16 to 24.

“I’m sure it’s in the clubs, but where we’ve seen it is in the younger crowds and in the young 20s, that’s who has been using and selling it (in Oakland County),” Jennings said.

Molly is often found at raves and nightclubs. Several popular music artists have recently glamorized or referenced Molly use in songs. Miley Cyrus sings about “dancing with Molly” in her song “We Can’t Stop,” while hip hop artists, like Kanye West and Jay-Z, have been known to talk about Molly in their music.

Molly also made recent headlines when two college students, a 20-year-old female and 23-year-old male, died from using the drug at New York’s Electric Zoo music festival earlier this month. The woman, named Olivia Rotondo, was said to have possibly taken six hits of the drug before she died, according to the New York Post.

Toxicology results are pending.

With the recent summer deaths in New York and across the country, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., laid out a plan to curtail the use of Molly. He first is pushing for a crackdown on Molly labs, working with the New York and New Jersey High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area group and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Schumer also said he will push new federal legislation that gives the federal government greater ability to ban the wide range of chemicals that go into the substance sold as MDMA or Molly. Currently, dealers are getting around federal law by slightly tweaking the chemical composition of substances that are banned, according to Schumer’s website.

Users of the drug may face the same or similar risks as users of cocaine and amphetamines, according to the DEA. The drug typically lasts between four to six hours, but the effects can last for weeks, according to the DEA.

“The risks, it’s just like Ecstasy ... if you take too much, you can overheat, high body temperatures ... you get dehydrated, you stay awake for long periods of time,” Jennings said.

According to the DEA, the drug increases heart rates and can ultimately cause death. For Oakland County, Jennings said he does not recall any Molly-related deaths, at least so far.

A spokeman for the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office said heroin and prescription drug overdoses, like Oxycotin, have been the most common recently.

Diana Schell, a forensic toxicologist from the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office, said: “Believe it or not, no, we don’t see that much. I don’t know why ... people here seem to prefer heroin ... It’s not as much as you would think ... in terms of causing death.”

Bob Ortlieb, a spokesman for Beaumont Hospital, said a Beaumont toxicologist reports that in the past few months they have not seen a spike in Ecstasy or Molly cases. The hospital reports that they have very few cases at their emergency rooms in both Royal Oak and Troy.

The New York Post also reports that drug dealers may be selling the deadly bath salts, saying that it is Molly. This could be the case in the Electric Zoo festival deaths.

Isaacson said: “It’s an interesting drug, people call this drug Molly, as a nickname, but there are many chemicals sold as Molly ... Some of the chemicals that were being found in the bath salt drugs are being found in (Molly). There is a lot of products out there that people are selling on the street as Molly.”

Jennings said he has not seen that as a problem locally, but it does happen.

“We do get that sometimes, where people are selling one thing and say it’s the other,” Jennings said.
“It’s certainly a really dangerous situation...people don’t really know what they’re getting when they’re buying them on the street,” Isaacson said. “... I do think it’s important to get the message out there ... just because it’s being sold as something on the street doesn’t mean it’s what their getting.”

Molly, as well as other forms of Ecstasy, can be addictive.

Kathy Forzley, a heath officer for the Oakland County Health Division, said: “It has potential for addiction because it is altering brain chemistry.”

According to the DEA, “MDMA is a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.”